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Nothing about the career of Joel Embiid is fair.
It’s not fair that his body has betrayed him both early and late in his career. It’s not fair that so many playoff runs have been foiled not by his knees but by random injuries like facial contusions, concussions, wrist injuries, and Bell’s Palsy.
It’s not fair that he’s been unable to fulfill his incredible promise outside of his 2023 MVP run, during which he had one of the best scoring seasons of all time.
That’s just life sometimes.
But just as we shouldn’t hold those things against Embiid too much, we can’t hold back Karl-Anthony Towns for Embiid’s availability. You have to play first in order to compete, to contribute, to be evaluated.
And Embiid hasn’t been healthy enough to evaluate.
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Until Joel Embiid is back on the court, Karl-Anthony Towns has the upper hand
It would be one thing if Towns were only average or slightly so, but instead, Towns responded to a sudden and upsetting trade to the New York Knicks with arguably his best season.
Towns has often touted himself as the best shooting big man of all time. Dirk Nowitzki is going to hang onto that title for a while longer, but the numbers are what the numbers are and Towns is climbing. Hea hs the third-most made threes of any center of all time behind Brook Lopez and Al Horford and should pass both in the next three seasons.
In New York, he got to play with the kind of point guard that can maximize his abilities in Jalen Brunson. The Brunson-Towns pick and roll vanquished teams this season. Without Towns’ shooting, it’s not as effective.
Towns also averaged a career-high 12.8 rebounds per game, attacking the glass like never before in his career. He’s on pace to finish third in rebounds per game.
KAT has also grown as a player in his maturity and on the defensive side. He oftentimes would have the right approach in terms of intent, but not execution. He’d try too hard and commit unnecessary fouls. He’d chase plays trying to make a block and allow an easy bucket by his man instead.
But those mistakes have mellowed as he’s gotten older. He figured out how to play winning basketball in Minnesota and he carried that with him to New York. He’s a winning player now.
For as much of Embiid’s career as that isn’t his fault, the reality is that Towns has made a conference finals, and Embiid never has. He’s never been past the second round, even when he had good chances at it. He’s lost series leads; he’s collapsed down the stretch of games, and he’s come up short in big moments.
Towns has had his foibles in the past, for sure, but his series against the Nuggets last year validated what he brings to the table. For Embiid, while he has to be the main guy as opposed to KAT being second-banana, Embiid’s postseason failures stand as a black mark.
Towns isn’t supposed to be as good, and has been. Embiid’s supposed to be so much better, and hasn’t been.
Maybe that’s just the way it goes, the product of luck and fate. If Embiid were healthy in the years he wasn’t, maybe he would have made the Finals, and maybe he would have won a title. But all we can do is judge based on what has happened, and Towns has had better playoff success than Embiid.
It’s said that the best skill is availability, which paints it in a light that puts too much on the players. Does conditioning play a role? Sure. But ultimately, you can’t be held responsible if your body constantly betrays you in all sorts of ways, no matter your routines.
But at the same time, it’s not the fault of those who can go to work and work well that some can’t.
KAT has to be higher than Embiid this season, even if people will speak in hallowed and hushed tones about how dominant Embiid was when he could play. Towns has done the job, and done it extremely well for the third-best team in the East. He’s earned the nod, regardless of whether it’s fair or not. That's why we have KAT at No. 17 and Joel Embiid all the way down at No. 32.